M'ole
by Ackerman
Summary: When Peter's pulled back into his past life of crime and debauchery, will it compromise the work that he's doing with the Fringe Division now?
1. There's More Than One Side, Peter

_Disclaimer: don't own Fringe. But that much is obvious. This isn't necessarily set around a specific time. Possibly after the finale but I dare say not too far into the future._

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**Mole**

"I don't... know who you're talking 'bout. I swear."

Wiping at his mouth and chin in contemplation, Al Simm tried to weigh up the truth in the young man's statement. They said that he had an innate intelligence about him far beyond that of the circle that he was known to have run about in, and that his involvement with such playground thugs was only ever by chance anyhow. It started off as a hefty gambling debt and before he could even step back and reassess his situation, he was already on his downward spiral towards the plughole and gladly turning favours for the big boys to get Big Eddie off of his back. Unfortunately for him, however, 'Big Eddie' or formerly Edward Lynch wasn't exactly a friend of Al's so when he got involved with _his_ gang for protection, he had unwittingly left himself open to being freely exploited as nothing more than a bargaining tool between the rival drug lords.

And now that they were holding him, Simm didn't care much for Peter's burnt bridges before high-tailing it out of Boston. All that concerned him was that he was here, on his knees, his hands cuffed behind his back, and whose head had such a price on it because of the lump sum plus interest he owed Big Eddie that he made such worthy human collateral. Should Al want to pilfer property from Big Eddie – and he did – he could use Peter to bait the man.

"I don't know how long you've been back in town, boy, but it might interest you to know that Big Eddie has been trying to launder money through one of _my_ clubs. Piqued the cops' interest. Whole, whole messy affair."

Peter raised his eyes to him, dim with defeat.

"Anyway. This is where you come in handy, Mr Rook. You hear?"

"I'm telling you the truth!" he tried a final time. "I don't know any Michael-"

Al bowed politely, giving consent to the man crouched just behind Peter. Smirking morosely, he watched as his friend placed a hand to the back of Peter's head and forced him into a bucket of water that they had placed in front of him some thirty minutes beforehand, his other hand gripping his shoulder to stop him trying to thrash about whilst submerged. Upon Al's nod, he knew to take a deep breath but as the seconds dragged by he knew that his willpower was slipping. The pounding in his head and behind his eyes was becoming unbearable and the tight pain in the centre of his chest was all he could think of until finally he gave up and began choking on the water he was immersed in.

"Phil," Al said softly.

Phil resisted a sigh when he was made to pull Peter up by the hair – matted in a wet clump beneath the man's fist – and out of the bucket entirely. He didn't care that all Peter could focus on was the urgency behind swallowing deep gulps and so he smacked him across the back of the head for good measure.

"Phil, please," Al smiled. "Let him get his breath back, at least."

Peter's uneven panting started to regulate into short, raspy breaths, and, blinking slowly to shake beads of water from his eye lashes that blurred his vision ever so slightly, he turned his face up towards Al again.

"So Rook," Al addressed him again. "Are you willing to cooperate with us or do I need to get Phil here to repeat the question again?"

"But I don't-"

He spluttered into the bucket again, this time feeling the weight of two hands pushing him down. Phil raised himself up onto his knees, holding him beneath the water until his own arms were soaked to the elbows and Peter had made contact with the base of the bucket. He was left to suffer for precisely thirty long seconds.

"Oh, Rook, Rook, Rook. I just don't believe you," Al shook his head, continuing to talk as if Peter hadn't been otherwise detained once Phil finally decided to bring him up for air once again. "You're to reacquaint yourself with Big Eddie's boys, right? And you might want to quit lying to me right here and now. I have it on good authority that you more than know one Michael Johnson. For supposedly having a few brain cells up there you damn sure shouldn't have beaten the guy up over an expendable little ex-girlfriend – and then proceeded to repeatedly lie to me on top of that."

"Look, fine, but as you _clearly_ know we aren't exactly on speaking terms, me and Johnson," Peter tried to reason. "There's no point in me getting close to him if you want me to try to worm my way back into Big Eddie's good books. It just isn't going to happen."

"Johnson's a sneaky useless little grass. I've worked with him. Lynch has worked with him. He's motivated by money and money alone," Al explained impatiently. Peter watched him quietly as his leather gloved hand slipped into the inside pocket of his suit jacket. "Here. 2K. You boys have fun kissing and making up, you hear?"

A small brown package was tossed at him casually, landing just short of the bucket.

"You should expect a little... check-up at the end of every week, Rook. I hope for your sake you don't take that little sum and go jump a plane somewhere thinking you can run it off."

"What makes you so sure that I won't?"

"Because you're smarter than that," Al clicked his fingers and suddenly Phil laid a hand on him again, but this time the heavy palm was to Peter's forehead so as to pull him backwards and the cold body of a knife was now resting delicately against his oesophagus. "Or so they tell me."

"And what if I fail? What if I work my way round Michael again, but Big Eddie he doesn't want to know? Or worse, he does. The man probably has a contract out on me by now – he's not exactly my biggest fan."

"No, no. _You_ he used to like. We can use that. If he wanted you out of the picture, he would have done that the second he found out you were back in Boston. Rest assured, kid. If you come to him, if you're the one doing all the approaching – fine, I'll not lie, you probably will get your ass beat, but he'll listen to what you have to offer."

"And what exactly am I meant to be offering him?"

"Petey boy," Al winked, bending slightly and patting his still-dripping wet cheek. "You're offering him the greatest thing of all. You're negotiating a deal between him and, well, me. You drop my name and mark my words he'll bite."

"No offence Mr Simm but Big Eddie hates you more than he hates me."

"You leave the tales of loves lost up to me, huh? You just concentrate on your side of things."

"Which you haven't been kind enough to share yet," Peter reminded through clenched teeth. He mentally cursed his tone as the knife pressed more firmly at his neck.

"Let me put it this way then, shall I?" Al straightened up and wiped at the corners of his mouth again. "It hasn't escaped me why your big draw to Boston hasn't gotten you all antsy like it did before you first left. Hell, not one year ago if you bumped into Peter Rook on the street, it was likely that he'd be two towns over the very next morning. But what's changed all of a sudden that has my little Petey boy sticking around, hmm?"

"He has responsibilities besides just himself now, right Mr Simm?"

"Yes," Al agreed. "He's not just leaving a girlfriend with an abusive would-be boyfriend waiting in the wings, knowing, hoping otherwise, but knowing anyway that once he slips off into the night like the little coward he is, his precious Tess is going to start bumping uglies with Michael. Unless she'd long been doing that behind his back anyway."

"You lay a finger on her-" Peter struggled, the handcuffs beginning to dig into his wrists.

"Her?" he pretended to be surprised. "Oh, you're absolutely right Petey. I wouldn't _dare_ touch Tess. She's one of Big Eddie's girls, right? What's Michael's is Eddie's and what's Eddie's is Eddie's, isn't that how it works? No, no, it's actually a different girl altogether that I have photos of you with recently. And a man. Your father."

Peter tensed.

"You were wondering what happened if you failed this little... assignment, yes? Well, it won't just be you getting a visit. Understand?"

"Perfectly."

Al sighed good-naturedly, "All right then. Phil."

Phil grinned, forgetting his knife to force Peter's face into the cold water enthusiastically. This time he was so unprepared that the punishment had blind-sided him, causing him to gag and gasp instantly.

"Clean this up when you're done," he ordered in a professional, emotionless tone. " Oh, and maybe have him dropped off... a few blocks away from the university, nothing too public mind. I'd love to stay but I have dinner reservations."

"Good evening, sir."

"Quite."


	2. His Arrival

_Cheers for the reviews. To answer anyone's questions regarding where this fic is heading, I'm sorry to announce that there won't be any 'Bolivia' on the cards. At least, not intentionally. I wouldn't do such a story arc justice.  
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**Mole**

A black nondescript car drew up alongside the curb of a fairly empty side street; just around the corner from a tight strip of competing coffee shops and small diners that relied on the constant stream of business that the student body and staff from Harvard managed to pull in for them. During the conventional daily grind, the main road was a pleasant hive of activity, but after six o'clock students dispersed either to hibernate or get ready to go out later that night to whichever choice clubs in the vicinity happened to be having two for one offers on shots. Phil replaced the handbrake in the car, his eyes never straying from the windscreen before him, not even to risk a side glance at Peter slumped in the passenger seat beside him.

"Few blocks from the university," he rattled off gruffly, "Not uh... not _too_ public, mind."

Peter expelled a shaky breath, closing his eyes to help nurture his pounding migraine, "Just so I know, _Philip_, you're not going to start getting chatty with me here too, are you? Or, now, if it's quite all right with you, may I please go?"

"Don't give me cheek, kid."

"Oh, no Philip, you have me all wrong. I wouldn't give a man like you cheek. If your swimming lessons are anything to go by, I most certainly wouldn't give you cheek."

Phil sighed heavily and just as Peter's hand moved for the door handle, he caught onto his lower arm, "Eh! You got that money on you?"

"You know that I do," he answered in a painfully measured tone. If it were possible, his mood was disintegrating even more so just at the thought of having to toe the line with someone with a clear power trip even though he was totally expendable within Al Simm's underground empire. Phil was your classic meathead. A dime a dozen meathead with a dull grasp on reality. A meathead who lived to serve. He wasn't disciplined. He was just too much of a meathead to question whether it's truly for the greater good that he would spend his evening dunking Peter's head into an ice cold pail of water. But, Peter supposed, he shouldn't exactly hold it against him. It wasn't, after all, Phil's fault that he was a –

"Show me it."

"Really?" Peter grunted, shifting his leg up a little to pull the envelope out from his back pocket. "You don't seriously believe that I could have been so stupid as to have lost it in the space of, what, the whole twenty minute car ride here?" Phil forced his thin lips into a smug smile and to save from punching the man square in the jaw, Peter tossed Al's package onto the dash board. "There. Happy now?"

"Maybe," Phil said brusquely, making a swipe for it. Opening the slip, he started fingering through the tip of the crisp notes. "You can never tell with your kind."

"My kind?"

"Big Eddie's crew. You can preach about how you're a different person now till the cows come home. Still don't change the fact that you used to slip all round Boston with his boys. I know exactly who you are," he paused to regard him, "_Bishop_."

Peter sucked in a breath, taking the mention of his surname as something of a casual threat. Perhaps Phil wasn't so expendable after all.

"There's 500 missing here."

"What? There can't be!"

"You calling me a liar, boy?" Phil warned, finishing his recount of the cash before pulling out a few fifties. He pocketed his self-approved cut and then turned quickly in the driver's seat to acknowledge Peter, swinging his fist with him and dispensing a sharp blow to his stomach. Peter, winded, doubled forward and released himself from his seatbelt to regain composure.

"You're such a prick, man," he wheezed, beginning to straighten up.

"Yeah, just you see to it that the five hundred is replaced and never mind who the prick is. And quietly, by the way. I wouldn't go announcing to Mr Simm you went and lost what you're meant to pass on to this here Michael character. And don't think he won't know how much you give the guy neither. Right?"

Peter bit his tongue, thinking of Olivia, Walter and Astrid. He knew that he couldn't afford to lash out at Phil even if in any other world he could pummel the man quite severely and probably get away with it too. In this world, he could no longer be nurtured by the bottom of a whiskey bottle nor could he feel a rush of relief and safety all at once at the possession of a plane ticket. He had roots laid down. He had a life where 'connections' meant an entirely different thing now. There weren't meant to be any Michaels or Phils or Simms of Lynches anymore. But the hard truth was that there still was. As much as he'd love to trade one life for the other, if he wanted to play the bad boy and give Phil his just desserts, it wasn't just himself that was going to have to answer to such indiscretions. He was putting his entire division at risk.

"Right, Pete?"

"Right," he agreed obediently, however his tone belied the sentiment.

"You can go now."

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Astrid set a tray of empty beakers down on the far-from-pristine surface of Walter's work station and looked up just in time to see the door close behind a rather dishevelled-looking Peter. She caught his eye from across the lab and he immediately brightened, however forced his smile seemed. She raised an eyebrow, beckoning him over and he considered following her silent request until movement in the corner of the lab grabbed his attention and he stiffened at the sight of Walter trying to inject a little something into the side of Betsy.

"What are you doing?"

"Ah, Peter!" Walter did a smooth 180 on his heels, flicking his safety goggles to his forehead to greet his son. "I'm-"

"Second thoughts, Walter," he brought his hands together gently, "I... don't think I want to know."

"Where – what happened to you?" his father became suddenly curious, greeting him anew again. "You look like you've been dragged through a hedge backwards. Doesn't he look like he's been dragged through a hedge backwards, Asper?" he added louder, addressing his assistant from the other side of the room, disregarding or failing to notice altogether Peter's nervousness.

"Me? Uh," even if the man wasn't exactly certifiably sane, Peter couldn't justifiably insult his intelligence by writing off such a statement because to say that he looked like he had been dragged through a hedge backwards seemed something of a compliment. His shoulders were still damp, his hair dried through but tousled madly. He was missing a few top buttons and his shirt was only half-tucked in at one side, with the other shirt tail and the back pulled out from his belt entirely. "I..."

"For a supposed genius and conman you're sure bad at thinking on the spot," Astrid teased, coming towards both men with a towel. "Was it raining, Peter?"

"It – it was," he bobbed his head slowly. "And I ran the whole way here to get out – um – of the rain. Forgot my jacket in the lab."

"The whole way here?" she asked, unconvinced. "I only sent you out on a sandwich run _three hours_ ago. Honestly, Peter, how come half hours can be anything up to a whole day with you? Last time Dr Bishop demanded pickled eggs we didn't see you till half four in the afternoon."

"Half four isn't late."

"You'd left at noon," she recalled flatly. "Look, if you didn't want to go-"

"I'm sorry. I... got held up with something," he mumbled, towelling himself off gratefully. "It won't happen again, Astrid."

"Won't happen again," she repeated, although there was no inflection in her tone to suggest she were asking him to further reiterate his point. "Fine. But you-" she cut herself short, making eyes at Walter again who had seemingly grown tired of their exchange and already returned to his variation of playing with Betsy. Taking Peter gently by the elbow, she pulled him away from the second work station. "You might be interested to know that Dr Bishop had another relapse today. I can't deal with his tantrums on my own, not when he's hungry."

"I'm sorry," Peter tried to sound sincere. "I've just had a lot on my plate. I thought he'd be okay for a couple hours."

"If this whole care thing is getting on top of you," she suddenly changed her tune, desperate not to provoke the more temperamental him. She knew from day one that he was a flight risk but if he up and left now, this late on in the game, on her head be it. He had some pull where Olivia was concerned and if she lost her little right hand man, it certainly wouldn't do Astrid any favours.

"No it's fine," Peter dismissed her. "Walter's fine."

"What about Walter?" Walter chirped up in third-person.

"Nothing," they answered simultaneously. The man squinted suspiciously between the pair before concluding that if they were talking about something truly fascinating then he'd probably have a body to probe soon anyway. But since they didn't seem to be talking about a case at all and they weren't greeted by Olivia's presence telling them of something even more exciting, he decided to take their 'nothing' at face value. Concentrating on Betsy again, he started humming an undistinguished song.

"Peter," Astrid implored with a note of exasperation. "Are you in some kind of trouble again?"

"No," he said stoically.

"_Peter_."

"I said no! Walter, can you finish up here so we can go grab some dinner? Come on, I'll treat you. We can eat out tonight."


	3. Their Same Old Story

Knocking back his fifth Jamaican rum and coke, Peter drew his wrist across his lips somewhat sloppily and then dropped a cheek onto his hand. When his elbow, which was helping to prop him up, slipped across the mahogany tabletop in the bar, he narrowly avoided sending the empty glass flying towards his company.

"You're not hearing me out," he slurred, holding a hand out. "It's just this one little favour. Just this one little... okay, it's not a favour. An errand."

"Pete."

"_Cal_," Peter matched the cynicism laced in his friend's voice.

"I've been your best friend for the past twelve years," Cal began, puffing out his chest as if he were readying himself for a grand speech. "And I know you," he pointed at him with two fingers, a cigarette wedged between them, "and I also know that one little favour is never usually one little anything. It's a whole list of things."

"Yes but I don't have a choice."

"Yeah, and what's new there? Look, as much as I know you, I sure as hell don't get you, Pete. I honestly don't," he took a long drag on his cigarette and then set to pouring Peter another drink, neat, whilst topping up his own. "Get that down you," he advised, clinking his glass with him. "Cheers. Now. As I was saying. You always do this. You always... have to go back. Look back. You have this – potentially – this good kind of thing going on at the minute. Reunited with your old man, no ex girlfriends beating you silly with their stiletto heels, none of the usual bullshit you seem to attract. You could have it all, man. Look at me."

"Yeah," Peter took a deep breath, reaching for their shared bottle to refill his glass again. "You have it made, buddy. A wife who can't stand you, a kid who loves her uncle Peter more than she does _her_ old man, and a dog with the personality of a kitten. You really do have it all. Your life, it certainly is something."

"My lil' Josie doesn't like you more."

"Fair 'nuff. But your wife still hates you and your dog's afraid of its own tail," he smirked around a victory sip. Cal chuckled into his own drink, shaking his head briefly. "But seriously, Cal. They said – he said I just need to get in contact with Michael again. Give him a little incentive of the financial kind," he rolled his thumb and forefinger together, "not to bust my face in."

"How much we talking here?"

Peter held up two fingers, "Although I've to throw another five hundred on top of that for... cab fair home, I suppose."

"So let me get this straight, Simm approached you and is actually willing to pay you to cosy up with Johnson just out of the blue? That's that?"

"That's... that. More or less."

"You told him no, of course. More or less?"

"Well," Peter cringed. "He kind of – it – it's amazing how persuasive a bucket of water, a pair of handcuffs and hired help can be. He expects me to get on Michael's good side again so, hopefully, in time..."

"Big Eddie," Cal finished for him. "Man, Pete, you drag me into some crap, you know that?"

"They collared me on the street, I was quite literally dragged into this myself. I've been keeping my head down."

"No, you keeping your head down was hanging out in Iraq or somewhere equally incommunicado, Mr Nomad."

"Two seconds ago you said I had something good going on here. Make your damn mind up Callum."

"All right, all right," he raised a hand, a frown cutting his features. "Jeez man, were you always this God damned whiny?"

Peter pulled back in his chair and brought his arms across his chest in an act of impatience.

"Look, I _might_ know a couple of guys. I'm not promising anything," he said, raising his eyebrows at him whilst rubbing around his unshaven chin, "You got that? I'm certainly not in the position to be promising you anything. Not today, not tomorrow. But I'll try. I'll ask around, see who knows what kind of work your buddy Michael's been doing for Big Eddie. Is it Michael himself that Simm suspects was the key guy laundering the money through the club or...?"

"Aw, I don't know," Peter took up his drink, wetting his lips with his tongue in contemplation before tipping the rim of the glass to his mouth. "I got fingered out of the old crowd, that's about as much as I know."

"To be fair, there's only who left? Myself, you, Michael – I never did like Michael. He was always your friend."

"He was never _my_ friend."

"Paddy," Cal continued. "But last I heard Paddy was run out of the country same as you. Though he wasn't stupid enough to come the whole way back. After the Brennan brothers turned up dead..."

"It was a different game after Big Eddie turned on Jack and Harry," Peter agreed sombrely, raising his glass to Cal's in a quiet toast to their deceased comrades. He closed his eyes as they swallowed together and Cal was soon racking up another two rums for them both. "Different game indeed."

"Well, listen, Pete. I will. I'll do that much for you. Who knows? Maybe you won't end up with the same fate as them," he smirked wryly. "That said, if I do end up reading about you in a newspaper–"

"I just need you to get me a little bit of info on Johnson. Last I'd seen of him, he was picking his teeth up from the pavement."

"And whose fault was that?"

"He had it coming," Peter shrugged dismissively. "Anyway, if you _could_ ask around I don't have to tell you that that'd be more than great. I just want to know, before I turn up flashing Simm's cash around, why he thinks Michael could give me that in."

"Maybe he figured you owed him a dental plan. Two grand's a tidy little bit of pocket money. Of course you'll get your in."

"I didn't think he was that tight with Big Eddie these days though. Save for the fact that Al called me in today, as far as I knew I sorted the guy out for ragging on Tess and nothing happened in way of them realising that I was back in town and back in town for quite some time might I add. I'd already touched base with _you_, Tess had approached me, begging me to leave. I knew I was getting followed but... for _months_, Cal. There's been nothing for months."

"Well, something's going down if Simm's men suddenly think that you pissing off Michael wasn't exactly a smart move. Maybe he _has_ been busy moving up in the world this past year. Due course, buddy. I always told you things had a nasty habit of coming back to bite you in the ass. _Maybe _Michael didn't sic Big Eddie's guys on you because, rightly so, he wasn't all that tight with him these days."

He raised a shoulder, smiling sympathetically across at him, "Maybe he passed your name off to Simm himself. He's flitted between Al and Big Eddie before. What if he's the one looking protection this time and you're not baiting Michael at all, but it's the opposite way round? What if you're the big fat carrot they're dangling out there, Pete?"

"Why would Al Simm care that I pissed Michael off? Why give me money to rectify it in the first place?"

"I'm _just_ surmising, Pete," Cal said firmly. "I'm just putting questions out there. Questions you'd be better off asking yourself now rather than finding whoever's intentions develop right and beautifully before your very eyes when you're all tied-up and sporting concrete runners. Losing the Brennan brothers was a hard enough blow, man."

"I can handle this."

"_No_. I handle things for you. You just smooth over all the technicalities and favours and think you're handling things on your own. And then you run away and get yourself in even bigger messes and who gets the little phone call to chew the fat over a couple drinks and then bail your ass out all over again? Huh?"

Peter sighed heavily, knowing better than to argue with his best friend and, with Cal's three short years above him, his mentor too. Way back when, they had been lured into this lifestyle together and were perhaps too young or just too naïve to see past the immediate riches and fast life. Money, alcohol, loose women, self-destruction. Whichever their reason for turning their hand at gambling within Big Eddie's domain, once the illusions fell away and they were left with the crippling weight of debt and homelessness, they had emerged together as pillars of support whose loyalty for one another had never waned. If they were ever willing to admit it, they were like the brothers that they never had.

"You make a move towards Michael before I get word back about his current associates, you're dead, you hear me? And I'm not talking about your odds, I'm talking about me and you personally. If you take Simm at his word and approach Johnson before the jury's out I'll personally take you for a long walk with a shovel and a shotgun. How does that sound?"

Peter smiled at him, nodding briefly. Cal sighed, bringing his cigarette to his lips and taking a final drag before smashing it down into his half-filled ash tray, "All right then," he exhaled, scratching at the back of his head and looking about the bar cautiously. "I should get going. You'll hear from me in a few days. You know the drill. I call you, you don't go calling me. Last time you called me, my wife decided I was having an affair. You call me, I won't answer. Next time I see you though, you're a dead man."

Peter's smile widened.

"You're a dead man," he repeated, raising a finger in warning.

"I appreciate this," Peter held out a hand. Cal stopped and slapped his palm against him, shaking once. "See you later, Callum."

"Pete," he conceded with an amicable bow, slipping out from around their table without a second glance.


	4. The Road They'd Taken

Plucking a latex glove from her hand, Astrid looked to Walter for direction, her eyes not as round as they would have been before she had trained herself into expertly suspending her disbelief. With a thin rod, he poked at the still-convulsing pig's heart on the sterile metal tray before them and mumbled at her to bring him his scalpel. She made a quick grab for it and watched him slice delicately through the tissue.

"It's going to flatline," he said, positively cheery, whilst dropping his scalpel and reaching for the cheese sandwich, yet untouched, on the plate just next to him.

"Gloves, Dr Bishop," she reminded him, if a little harshly.

"What? Oh, yes dear! Yes, of course," he chuckled, peeling off first the left and then the right and disposing of them on top of the tray. "You know," he said around an enthusiastic bite, "You quite remind me of Peter's mother; hellish woman, she was. Uh, but she was very hygienic is what I meant! No disrespect to yourself there, you must understand. I just remember that she was always..."

"Nagging?" Astrid offered, suppressing the will to roll her eyes. "I can't think why."

"Yes, yes," he agreed fervently. "_Nagging_. If ever there was a word to sum up my ex-wife it would be 'nagging,'" he repeated again, enjoying the sound of it on his tongue. He surveyed the empty lab shiftily, should he insult Peter in the process. "You know, that damn boy's turned out just like her. _'Don't touch this. Don't touch that. Did you clean your hands, _Walter_? Don't play with your food. Don't play with the evidence. Don't play with yourself_.' Honestly! Anyone would wonder who the parent was in the relationship. Or who the woman was, for that matter."

"Nice," she smirked.

"Speaking of," Walter said, practically beaming now. "Did you know who stumbled home not a second sooner than three o'clock last night?"

"Give up," Astrid said around an exasperated sigh having pretended to consider their suspects. She wasn't at all surprised at the news that Peter had had a late one the night before judging by the low cap, half-closed eyes and painkillers he had been popping two at a time that morning. And his over-sensitiveness regarding every little thing. She had more than welcomed his absence when Olivia swooped into the lab to take him off of their hands, giving him some hero-of-the-hour errand after he had chewed his father's head off for clumsily knocking a row of glass beakers from the counter.

"Peter! He had a hangover from _hell_, let me tell you, miss," he gossiped, punctuating his words. "But like I always say – I said: '_Boy! If you're old enough to drink, you're old enough to make me a pancake stack_.' Never goes over well though. So I got out the pots and pans and started banging them around until getting out of bed – well, couch – would be the lesser of two evils for him."

"That's just cruel," she grinned. "So you got your pancakes then?"

Walter simply winked, taking a second bite of his sandwich again. If Astrid didn't know any better, she thought, at times, the cunningness that the ageing man demonstrated when it came to manipulating his way into acquiring certain food groups belied the fact that his mental records were altogether patchy. On a rare day, when he was relatively lucid, it was easy to remember such was his high IQ; but when it came to begging for edibles, an even more common daily occurrence, Walter was almost too clever for his own good – or Peter's own good – that Astrid was left questioning how much of his dotage was truth and how much was just an elaborate act.

Holding that thought, Astrid felt a stir in her jeans pocket and felt for her phone before the monotonous 'ring, ring' cut across the gentle vibration, "Agent Farnsworth," she answered professionally. Walter turned away from her immediately, muttering to himself about modern technology and the uses of actual melodies on phones nowadays. He didn't care much for them because despite his genius he simply didn't understand the ins and outs of them, but ones with especially boring ringtones unnerved him even more so.

Or so he had concluded after working out how to set Peter's to Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da by _The Beatles_ and his son hadn't been best pleased with him after it had went off during a meeting with Broyles, subsequently changing the tune back to that same bog-standard ringing. Walter remembered the moment with unusual clarity. Peter had sighed heavily, bringing a hand to his forehead, his cheeks reddening. He had asked to be excused and demanded that Walter see him in the hall for a minute, then proceeded to lecture him about touching his things. Broyles had nodded, not even cracking a smile but Olivia seemed mildly amused about the whole thing. In fact, it became a bit of a running joke thereafter – at Peter's expense, of course. But hey, life goes on. He would get over it.

"No... he definitely didn't return to the lab even if you did drop him back. We haven't heard from him since he accompanied you to do that background check on Mr Mayer."

"Is that Olivia?" Walter's interest piqued. Astrid smiled at him quickly. "Ask her, if she's coming back here, could she be so kind as to stop at a shop and pick me up some chocolate-coated-"

"Not now, Dr Bishop," she apologised.

"Raisins..."

"I could try his cell if you want but – oh, you have? Well, maybe the battery died on him. I'll tell you what, if he's gone another half hour Walter and I will drive back to the hotel and – yeah, he probably wouldn't be too happy if he thought we were keeping tabs on him. If he comes in, I'll tell him to give you a call then," she replied in acquiescence. "Goodbye."

"Was that about my son?"

"There's nothing to worry about," she brushed aside a stray curl falling across her forehead. "Do you want to play with your, uh, heart again?" Walter brightened at the prospect, immediately forgetting about Olivia's phone call. "Gloves, Dr Bishop..."

"I _know_," he growled irritably, slapping his half-eaten sandwich onto his plate and moving for the disposable glove box. "You're just like-"

"Peter's mother," she talked across him, not even bothering to explain upon his dumbfounded expression that he had already had such a conversation with her minutes prior. As she stood there playing assistant to the living caricature of Mad Scientist lacking only the bottle-lensed glasses and Einstein-esque hair, she found that her mind, forever drifting, was doting on Peter again.

Her role within this unit was constantly being remodelled. First she was merely the Junior Agent and assistant to Special Agent Dunham; then they were all made to adjust around the weird happenings until she was allowed to fade into the background and had become no more significant than the lab equipment; then her gradual rapport with Walter made her an essential assistant to the consultant assisting the FBI i.e. the assistant's assistant; and then when Peter became slack or busy or trusting – whichever way she happened to look at it and whichever mood he happened to be in at the time – she became assistant-babysitter too. But, occasionally, when they did require her for being the Junior Agent she was first and _apparently_ foremost, she was able to offer grave insights into specific fields and help speed the solving of whichever problem in her own little way.

Although it was still a rather thankless job, and victories were usually hollow ones. Because deep down Astrid knew that there was always something just there beyond the surface and they were only ever chipping away at whatever it was with a tooth pick. Peter was part of that problem. Sometimes he proved to be as elusive as the Pattern and ZFT and all the other temporarily unexplainable crap that they had to deal with:

He disappeared and reappeared randomly; he practised his poker face – lying and bottling up like the conman he was but he also _opened_ up and, over time, had exhibited a genuine affiliation for both his father and the team; he was hot-headed and obsessive but he would be the first person to bring her coffee and keep reminding Walter of her actual name even when she herself had given up so long ago. He was a flight risk, she could never forget that, but, somehow, he was loyal.

And she knew that despite his penchant for seemingly wandering off randomly, there was nothing very random about him. Only that he was an especially guarded person and if he had dodged a few hours between riding shotgun with Olivia and returning to the lab, he most definitely had good reason.

"Hey, Astrid. Coffee?"

Astrid blinked slowly, looking between Walter and his prodigal smug sonofabitch shrugging an arm out of his jacket whilst balancing a takeaway tray cup holder in one hand.

"Your phone's off. Olivia was looking for you," she said, eyeing him suspiciously as he hung up his jacket and then moved further into the lab, passing his two beverages to her and his old man. "But thank you."

"You caused quite a stir, boy," Walter said giddily. "I think they were even beginning to worry about you!"

Peter grinned, "Oh really?"

"Like I said," Astrid said coolly. "Olivia called. She couldn't understand how it took you between one to two hours to walk from her SUV in the visitor's parking lot to here. Excluding your little coffee run..."

"Gee, I'm sorry. I wasn't aware that I needed a pass to leave the university grounds," he replied sardonically.

"Two hours here, four hours there. It would just be nice is all," she raised an eyebrow at him knowingly, "if you were to tell someone you were going to be out of commission for a while. Even Dr Bishop's learned to leave a note. Remember?"


	5. Her Ability

Olivia breezed into the lab, struggling under the load of her case files, and stopped just short of her office door. Throwing a shoulder up against it, she cocked her hip to draw her keys from her pocket. Astrid flanked her side immediately, offering to take the folders from her.

"Oh, thanks but I got it," she smiled, finally pushing the door open and leading them both inside. "No Bishops today?" she asked casually, not terribly concerned considering it was still early enough in the morning.

"Walter's in the bathroom trying to get a doughnut stain out of his shirt," the younger agent replied, watching Olivia dump her work onto the already untidy desk unit and move for her filing cabinet. "Peter... didn't weigh in again."

"Again?" Olivia paused and Astrid caught the hint of surprise in the woman's voice. "What do you mean again?" Astrid bit down onto her lower lip and dropped her gaze before composing herself quickly, but it only took that fraction of a moment for Olivia to realise that her assistant wasn't necessarily complaining about the younger Bishop boy's continued tardiness. "Well, where is he? Did he not accompany Walter over here this morning?"

"He did – he has been," Astrid backtracked, shaking her head. "Look, I'm not saying that he's not turning up for work."

Olivia sighed, "If a member of my team is distracted by... anything, Astrid, don't you think that it would be in his or her best interests if I were to know?"

"Distracted," Astrid replied dumbly. "I think that sounds more accurate."

"Has he been taking strange phone calls or something?" she guessed, remembering when Peter had denied the mother of the dead lab assistant access to his father and then tried to shelter the rest of them from her making contact again.

"He's been..." Astrid closed her eyes. "I'm sorry, it's probably nothing."

"With men like Peter 'probably nothing' is usually very much something," Olivia encouraged with a note of amusement.

"He's been very backwards and forwards lately. I mean, it probably _is_ nothing but I just thought you should know. He's a little off lately, if I'm being honest. And I don't think it's just the work or Walter getting to him either."

Olivia nodded, processing this.

"And just the other day," she became more comfortable in confiding with her superior, "well, he came into the lab. He was gone for – hours. When he came in he was acting really weird. I mean, more weird than usual." They shared a fond smile before sobering again. "He looked a little roughed-up, if you ask me. There was nothing obvious to suggest that he had been fighting or anything – I mean he wasn't bruised or bloody, you've seen him yourself since – but when he first came back... he wasn't very _decent_, you could say."

"I've had to wake them up in person too many times in the middle of the night. I've seen him when he's not decent, trust me," Olivia said lightly. "How do you mean?"

"He was just awkward-looking. And wet. And despite what he said, I'm convinced it hadn't been raining."

"Wet?" Olivia inhaled, casting her colleague a funny look. Astrid confirmed this with a nod but sudden guilt she felt for not respecting Peter's privacy had her teeth trailing on her bottom lip once more. "That does sound a little off. Thanks for letting me know."

"Are you going to talk to him?" Astrid asked with a rush of anxiety at the possibility of being caught by Peter. "Because I did try. I asked him outright. At first I thought he wasn't coping with playing full-time carer to Dr Bishop but if that were the case he wouldn't have fought Sumner so much on getting custodial rights. I asked him if he was in any kind of trouble."

"I'm sure that went over well?"

"Not terribly. He clammed up and took Walter home early."

Olivia turned their absentee consultant's behaviour over in her mind before striding towards her filing cabinet. Astrid hesitated by the door, wondering if their conversation had ended when the blonde had returned to collecting the random manilla folders from the top drawer, "I don't really know him," she admitted finally, stalling Astrid's movements. "But in the time I _have_ known him, when he takes umbrage with a little constructive criticism or – God forbid – friendly concern, he'll vent and blow up and remind me so much of Walter it's uncanny..."

"Like father like son," the junior agent added, enjoying the cliché.

"But he usually always comes round in the end," Olivia finished softly, looking up from her paperwork. "At least, that's been my experience with him. We're just going to have to be patient here."

"And in the event that he doesn't heed our advice and does go out and do something stupid? What if he's involved in something again?"

"Oh, he's far from stupid," she reminded. "But I suppose that's my main concern."

"Yeah," Astrid flapped an arm by her side, "He could be way over his head."

She forced a half-smile at the younger woman, watching her excuse herself, before coming around her desk to drop heavily into her chair. Her eyes quickened over the considerably thin file she had on Peter Bishop now in front of her. She suspected his employment history was as impressive and elusive as his character, but despite how she lured him into her world, the Bureau had little to no evidence of any of his previous conquests. He had harnessed well his ability to bend the law around himself without so much as a criminal record, it seemed, and despite various notes she had gathered through Walter and their cases, the young man's birthday and sketchy medical background, on paper she didn't know all that much about him. But she was bound and determined to rectify that.

Leaning back a little to pull her phone from her pants pocket, she speed dialled her longest confidante and he answered on her first ring, "Hey Charlie. I need you to find out all you can about Peter," she explained monotonously. "I'm aware that an extensive background check was pulled on him when Homeland Security was approving his credentials and that he passed Harris' inspection of the division but..." she hesitated, knowing that whatever she thought of him personally, she was betraying her job if she didn't investigate any damaged link in her team. "Well, I was just hoping that you could track him for me. If even for a couple of days and see if you turn up with anything. Thanks."


End file.
